Footnotes of an America United

And there were these footnotes to the story of America's war on terrorism. While Canada's solicitor general was in Washington pledging solidarity in the war on terrorism, one of his fellow cabinet ministers was facing calls for her resignation after sitting still for an anti-American outburst during a feminist conference in Ottawa.

Secretary of State for Multiculturalism Hedy Fry was on the podium and sat silently as feminist activists and a college professor called the U.S. -- quote -- "The most dangerous and most powerful global force, unleashing horrific levels of violence. From Chile to El Salvador," she said, "to Nicaragua to Iraq, the path of U.S. foreign policy is soaked in blood." End quote.

The audience cheered. Secretary Fry said later she was disgusted by the comments, but opposition politicians said she should have said so at the time.

Calls for stricter security have led to reports of airline passengers having their safety razors and nail clippers confiscated, even though such items are for sale in stores inside the security checkpoints. Officials are really getting serious at government offices in Detroit, where aluminum cans, nail polish, cameras, perfume bottles, hair spray and dental floss are now banned in the Coleman Young Municipal Center. That building houses the mayor's office, the city council chambers and the local circuit court.

And Detroit, by the way, has the largest concentration of Arab-Americans. And the Detroit "Free Press" polled them to find out how they feel about racial profiling in the war on terrorism. Most said the practice had escalated since September 11th, but 61 percent said extra questioning or inspections of Arab-Americans were justified. Twenty-eight percent disagreed, and nearly 70 percent said the U.S. war on terrorism is not a war on Islam or Arabs.

The leading Muslim cleric in the Cleveland area, Imam Fawaz Damra, is furiously apologizing for remarks he made a decade ago in which he urged -- quote -- "directing all the rifles at the first and last enemy of the Islamic nation, the sons of monkeys and pigs, the Jews." After a tape of those comments was played on local TV station, WJW, Damra expressed what he called overwhelming regret and sadness for his -- quote -- "horrific statements" in 1991. This week, thought, Damra accused Israel of state-sponsored terrorism against the Palestinians.